


leeches and left shoes

by boom_goes_the_canon



Series: escapades of a young medical student [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, First Meetings, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Love at First Sight, M/M, Minor Injuries, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26662639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boom_goes_the_canon/pseuds/boom_goes_the_canon
Summary: After a month of Laigle’s pining and sighing and wishing he would break another bone, Grantaire plants himself outside the medical school and resolves to wait there until he finds a sign of Laigle’s elusive Joly. He doesn’t have a very good description of Joly, but he figures there can’t be too many students with un-Romantic umbrellas and leech canes.
Relationships: Grantaire & Bossuet Laigle, Joly/Bossuet Laigle
Series: escapades of a young medical student [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963519
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	leeches and left shoes

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the people of Saint-Merry discord server for their feedback!

“I am in love, my good man,” Laigle announces cheerfully, slamming open the door. The shelves rattle, and along with them, the last good bottle of wine. It trembles, teeters on the edge, and shatters on the floor. He fumbles at the shards and cuts himself in the process.

Grantaire surveys him with a long-suffering eye, his other having swelled shut after a pub brawl. Laigle’s right hand is still bleeding from the wine bottle, but his left wrist is newly splinted and bandaged, and so is his foot. He broke both of them in an accident the day before, and it is good to see him getting proper medical attention.

Instead of asking after the new development, Grantaire scoffs. “You sound ridiculous. People do not fall in love over the course of an afternoon. That sort of thing only happens in silly stories for the entertainment of those who don’t know better. Fall in love, they say. As if it is so easy to do so.” He pauses for a breath. “Love is a wretched state to be in, and I refuse to be wretched.”

Laigle sits beside him. "I take that to mean you are happy for me and are excited to learn more."

Grantaire snorts, doesn’t deny it. "Well? Who's the unlucky bastard?"

"As you know," Laigle says. "I was out of money for a doctor.”

Grantaire nods. Laigle’s exploits always begin when he is out of money.

“And seeing as there are upcoming examinations, I thought the medical students would be glad to have a living person to practice their techniques upon, so I decided to display myself outside the medical schools for any takers. I made a glorious racket, and several passersby objected quite strenuously.” He rubs his balding head for dramatic effect. “I got a left shoe for my trouble.”

"Continue, Laigle de Meaux! Your story has the seeds of an entertaining tale."

"I shall do my best to water it," Laigle says, gesturing to the blood dripping from his finger. Grantaire groans at the pun and makes a grab for the hand.

"Careful," Laigle yelps. Grantaire loosens his grip a little and binds the wound clumsily with a ragged handkerchief. He twists the ends and tucks them out of the way, and Bossuet flexes his hand experimentally.

"It limits my movement, it staunches the bleeding, it is terribly knotted. I give it four marks out of fifteen. My beloved could do better."

Grantaire raises an eyebrow at that.

Laigle laughs, enjoying having his audience on the edge of their seats. “He was a medical student, and he had a distinctly un-Romantic umbrella,” he says, with a besotted sigh. “He had a leech in his cane, and it was adorable.”

“The leech? I misjudged you, Laigle de Meaux. You are a man of exotic tastes.” He gets a light swat on the head for his troubles.

“The student, you idiot. The student.”

“And he practiced on you?” Grantaire says, waggling his eyebrows until they feel odd. “How scandalous.”

“He bought me a drink too.”

“Ah, a man after my own heart.”

Laigle ignores him, as he should. “His name was Joly.” He trills. “Jolllly. I wonder if I’ll see him again.”

-

After a month of Laigle’s pining and sighing and wishing he would break another bone, Grantaire plants himself outside the medical school and resolves to wait there until he finds a sign of Laigle’s elusive Joly. He doesn’t have a very good description of Joly, but he figures there can’t be too many students with un-Romantic umbrellas and leech canes.

The doors swing open, and out comes a medical student with glasses as thick as his thumb, accompanied with the most beautiful man Grantaire has ever seen in his life. He has blonde hair rippling back from a sculpted marble brow, brilliant blue eyes the color of the sky, and—

—and he’s looking in Grantaire’s direction. Grantaire turns away, whistling a chipper tune in an effort to remain casual. He doesn’t stop until the two are out of sight.

He turns back to the doors of the medical school and checks his pocket watch. He only has about three hours left before Laigle starts wondering where he is. He has to hurry and find the love of his friend’s life, and tell him that he better start seeing Laigle, or _else_.

He slings an arm over the next person that comes out the door and offers him a swig of wine.

“Hello, my good man. Lend me your eyes. Do you think _that_ fellow has a leech in his cane?” He points none too steadily.

“Um, who?”

Grantaire squints. The man he was pointing to seems to have disappeared. He selects a new target, an awkward short man with an otherwise cheerful air. “That…that guy with the scarf and the brown hair. _Him_.” He jabs the finger in the air. “Does he have leeches in his cane or not?”

“Ask him yourself.”

An excellent idea.

Grantaire strolls over to the man in question. The man furrows his eyebrows at him and smiles, an impressive display of facial flexibility. “Did you or did you not treat a balding man, with a broken ankle and wrist, and in possession of an extra left shoe, about a month ago?”

The student’s expression morphs into a smile. “Oh, Bossuet?”

“Yes. Laigle de Meaux.”

“We’ve met,” says the student, and he practically bounces on the tips of his toes. “I’m Joly.”

“He mentioned.” At length. “Grantaire.”

Joly beams at that and shakes his hand. “I’m sure the three of us are going to be the very best of friends,” he says. “Can I buy you a drink? I’m testing the preventive effects of wine consumption on cholera.” Joly lowers his eyes. “For science, you realize.”

“Oh, I see why Laigle likes you.”

Joly grins. “I like him too.”

Grantaire gags.

-

Joly can drink even Grantaire under the table, and frankly, that deserves some sort of award in itself. They stumble along the cobblestones while singing an off-color tune at the top of their lungs. Well, Joly is singing. What Grantaire’s doing can be charitably characterized as bawling.

“A toast!” Grantaire says, raising the mostly-empty wine bottle. “To good wine, and the people who buy it for you!”

Joly cheers weakly, interrupted by a small hiccup. He’s well-bundled in a particularly fashionable coat, and his scarf is wound around the lower half of his face. It’s not even that cold.

“We’re going to the rooms Laigle de Meaux and I share,” Grantaire narrates in a breathless hush. “And then I will shut the door, and take my sorry self elsewhere, and you and Laigle de Meaux can have a reunion fit for ragged romance novels.”

“You’re rooting for us, then,” Joly says, lifting his eyebrows and crossing his eyes with impressive coordination.

“Bah,” Grantaire says, attempting to bat the thought away with his hand and not succeeding. “It’ll be over within a month. I’ve made a bet with the man shamelessly taking over my bed and drinking my wine, and our Laigle de Meaux does not win bets.”


End file.
